. >> reporter: richard paul evans went from that salt lake city house to this one, all because of a little tale he wrote for his daughters. you didn't think, okay, i want to sell this and people are going to buy this and everyone will fall in love with this book. >> the idea of being a novelist is really romantic but it's kind of the same as being a president of the united states. it's like it's not going to happen. >> reporter: but it did happen for rick evans. you may remember the christmas box, a mega hit 20 years ago. so this is the original little book that you published. evans first printed only 20 copies of the book but in the days before the internet took off, friends started passing dog-eared copies around. and bookstores started asking for it. >> at that point i thought, you know, maybe i should send this to publishers. they all quickly rejected the book. >> reporter: so evans self-published. only after his book hit the best seller list, did a major publisher buy it for a reported $4 million. so in a way, he became a godfather to a whole new generation of authors who are writing